


If you can't take the heat, turn on the A/C

by kd_ntjb



Category: Pitch Perfect (2012)
Genre: Gen, Multimedia, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 13:26:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kd_ntjb/pseuds/kd_ntjb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They aren't just a team, they're a symbol.</p><p>(Aubrey Posen and why Pukegate was a lot more than national humiliation.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	If you can't take the heat, turn on the A/C

**Author's Note:**

> So, I tag it as gen, but I suppose it's also pre-Chaubrey if you squint. Most of my fics can be effectively summed up as 'Aubrey thinks about things'. No big game change on this one, for better or worse.

Chloe always tries to make it so simple.

For Chloe, it's still about the fun. It's about performing and singing and the things they've done together as a team. She doesn't see it the things that are just _bigger_ than them. If she does, then she gives no acknowledgement of it. They've made it to the finals and it's _not_ just a celebration of them and all they've worked for: it's bigger than that. This is history: the first all-female team to advance to the ICCA final. This could be history: the first all-female team to win the ICCAs. They could be champions.

Aubrey thinks-- No. Aubrey knows differently.

They aren't just a team, they're a symbol the way they've always been down to the pristinely matching uniforms and the impeccably synchronised choreography. They're the product of generations of hard work striving towards this moment, striving towards a glass ceiling shattering all over a stage and recognition of them (and not just them but _them_ \- all women) even if it's in something as ostensibly banal as colliegiate a cappella. Because it matters. It's college and it matters. And people think about small things and gloss over them and think it doesn't because a cappella is stupid and trivial and a waste of time, but it's still something, it's still a competition and it's proving something, breaking an assumption.

There's just so much fodder out there. Sometimes it feels like whenever you even start to inch towards success, every failing, every action you perform is scrutinised and held up as part of your poor ambassadorship for all women kind. Aubrey knows there are people in Lincoln Centre tonight who, if they don't place, will wave the Bellas around as an example of the inherent weakness and incapability of women to succeed. And, yes, Aubrey knows that it's success in the context of a cappella, but there's always a sentiment behind it that's in a bigger context. Their failures don't really exist in a vacuum; they're a reflection gender and the whole construction of inferiority society has around it - this  _assumption_  that, somehow, women just _aren't_ and never will be 'as good as' men.

It's not just about them. It's not just about a cappella. It's-- It could be-- It would be a change, that's all. Maybe it wouldn't prove anything. Maybe it'd prove something small and inconsequential. Maybe it would change a lot of things.

If they win, maybe those assumption would fall apart.

Aubrey could be part of that. Aubrey wants to be part of that. Aubrey knows that this is so much more than just her or Chloe or Alice wanting to win. It's the Bellas as a team. It's a legacy for Barden University, for collegiate a cappella, for anyone in that audience today or tomorrow watching this moment and thinking yes, they can, so why not me? It doesn't take much. Even if some little girl looks back on this moment and considers, just for a second, that is was great a bunch of young women, all together, worked hard and won something and were _recognised_ , singled-out for that greatness, that they were _champions_ of anything--

She would have been happy. It would have been something. Sometimes, something is enough. Sometimes, little things are enough. Little things. Like, how if she proved she was good enough (that they were all good enough) just once on any stage, someone would have been watching and someone would just  _think_ even if it was just for a second and the thinking would make  _change._ They wouldn't get shooed away, told to go home, told to rein it in, told to sit it out in the corner for more adept men to lead the charge. Little things could have been sparks for bigger things.

They could have been champions.

But Aubrey ruins all that. Aubrey vomits on-stage and ruins any chances of any change or proving any thing because she _ruins it_. This is what they'll be remembered for: not the painstakingly arranged music, not the down-to-the-second dancing, not any reflections or considerations into how hard they've worked or how together they are. This is what they'll be remembered for: just a bunch of girl, flighty, reckless, emotional overcome by weakness, too nervous, too _hysterical_ to keep it cool on stage. The word just makes Aubrey feel even more sick because that an argument that's been used for years to disprove any arguement a woman puts forth, to shut her up any time she tries to stand up. 'Calm down.'

Now Aubrey's just added to that.

Chloe's at her side and rubbing soothing circles into her back and Aubrey can't even move -- all she can do is think and try to choke down the bile that's threatening to spill out of her throat again. She wills herself not to move, her chest not to rise, her gut not to wretch because she can't just keep ruining everything they've ever worked for and--

Chloe keeps saying something to her. If Aubrey concentrates past sound of the blood thudding through her head she can almost hear them: consoling words and platitudes, like how the Bellas will forgive her and how Chloe will keep Alice off her or how they, the two of them, just Aubrey and Chloe, have another year to take a shot at this and how it's _okay_. Like it's okay and Aubrey hasn't just vomited over, not only the Bellas' chances of winning, but any respect the audience has for all-female a cappella groups in general. 

Chloe looks her in the eye and Aubrey looks back at her. Chloe's eyes are blue and clear and, it's funny, because they make Aubrey think of clear seas which is ironic because they feel like an anchor that keeps Aubrey from being ripped apart by the way it feels like the stares of every other person in Lincoln Center, muddled by darkness and spotlights, are pinned on her. Chloe keeps talking in hushed, muted tones right at Aubrey, right for Aubrey. A mantra, like it's only the two of them and it doesn't matter, like it's okay.

Maybe it _is_ okay. Maybe it _is_ simple. Maybe Aubrey's over-thinking it the way she overthinks everything. Maybe it's not. Maybe everything's ruined forever and that'll have to rest, heavy, on her conscience. All Aubrey really knows is that Chloe holds her hand and she remembers to _breathe_.


End file.
